


Beautiful

by literary_shitstorm



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Aaron is a Dancer, Aaron's a bit of an asshole, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But we still love him, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Kevin is a Football Player, M/M, i hate this, it's pretty angsty, run while you still can
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 16:24:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20820287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literary_shitstorm/pseuds/literary_shitstorm
Summary: There's a mystery in an abandoned building and when Kevin finds out he can't keep his eyes off of the blond-haired dancer boy.





	Beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> Fun Fact 1: I listened to a slowed version of _'You' by Petit Biscuit_ as my inspiration for this. I guess it gives it some vibes if you like to listen to music whilst reading.

Kevin had run past the dingy studio on his biweekly route for the past year and a half, yet for the first time, he noticed a warm light creeping under the cracks in the crooked door. The place had obviously gone bankrupt years prior, left to rot through the vicious winters and even more dangerous summers- the years hadn’t been kind to those four walls. It was in one of the older parts of town and the history major within him couldn’t help but wonder if the building had once served a much higher purpose than the one it had sadly been reduced to.

The faint light wasn’t the only puzzling addition to the scenario, the slightest hum of music cut through the nighttime air. Not the sound of rebellious teenage rock or the top charts like he would’ve expected, instead it was a delicate melody. A string of graceful notes with the ever so slight snap of a beat in there, a deep thrumming that kept the song alive. Kevin had never claimed to be any kind of music connoisseur but it was _beautiful_. It was drawing him in like he didn’t think possible, all thoughts of his jog almost void from his mind. _Almost_. He quickly pulled himself back, the bite of the evening reawakening his senses- if he stayed out too long his step-mother would be worried sick, no doubt eager to bring out Carolina’s entire police force to gather his whereabouts.

He picked up his feet and carried on his way without a second thought.

* * *

Two weeks later and Kevin was back on the same route past the studio and it was becoming increasingly harder to resist the temptation to look inside. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and now Thursday; each day he had felt the stuttering in his stride as he heard the familiar tune, the draw to an inevitable stop and the way his torso would always twist to face the entrance. He tried to tell himself that he just enjoyed the music and that it wasn’t the underlying curiosity screaming that _somebody was in there_ begging him to peek inside and see just what kind of creature chose to inhabit a place like that. But every time he would get too close all those school assemblies about ‘stranger danger’ would flood to the forefront of his mind, the anxiety would begin to kick in and he would be on his way before you could say run.

Friday came around he knew that things would be different.

He had set out earlier than normal, the sun hadn’t even begun to set and there was only the slightest sliver of grey licking the skyline, the streets were still buzzing with activity; if he wanted to safely get a glimpse of his mysterious visitor there was no better time to try. So he waited with his phone in his palms and a foot placed neatly against the wall behind him, a desperate attempt to avoid drawing attention to his meandering.

Half an hour passed and nothing changed other than the blooming of colors beginning to ripple across the sky and the disappearance of the sun behind a thick layer of clouds. It was when a weak chill started to settle in that Kevin considered calling it a night, heading home and preoccupying his mind with plays and strategies for that weekend’s game. That all changed when he pocketed his phone and drew his foot from the wall; he looked up at _the boy_ walking past him and he _knew._

He was short, that was the first thing Kevin noticed, impossibly so. There was an air of grace and nonchalance to the way his feet curled into the floor as he worked and the way his body combined sharp features with even sharper movement. It was cat-like and bordering on plain sinister. Whoever this guy was, he seemed just as on edge as Kevin. A golden mop of curls sat atop his head, ever so slightly beginning to brush into his eyes, or perhaps it was being pushed down by the almost comically large headphones that covered his ears. As expected, when the figure deemed that there was nobody around to witness, he slipped into the studio and slammed the door behind him.

He wished that he could go back and pretend that it had never happened because Kevin’s mystery had a face and _oh god it was beautiful._

* * *

“It’s kind of weird, isn’t it?”  
“Shut up Neil.”  
“I’m just saying, Kevin, you’ve been listening to this guy for weeks-”  
“Neil.”  
“And now you’ve seen him-”  
“Shut the fuck up, Josten.”  
“And you can’t go a second without thinking about him.”

It wasn’t true, Kevin was _perfectly capable of going without thinking about his mysterious stranger, wasn’t he?_

* * *

Kevin didn’t dare believe that things could get any worse from there. He’d always had a problem with fixation: football, friends, family- but now it was him and every single time he saw the slightest flash of blond he felt anxiety beginning to knaw at his chest. He didn’t dare admit that whatever this was could be a crush, because this was a stranger that he’d never even spoken to. He didn’t even know his name. _He wasn’t gay._ He’d dated the star of the Girls Football Team, Thea Muldani, back in high school for over two years and prior to that, he’d had a few silly adolescent romances. He wasn’t gay but he felt as though the picture of this boy was burned into the back of his eyelids. It failed to ease any of the anxiety that he was feeling.

It was on his Wednesday evening jog, two weeks after first laying eyes on his puzzle, that Kevin encountered an unavoidable trap that begged for his attention. The door was open. Well, it wasn’t _intentionally_ open, but for the first time the light that usually managed to just creep under the doorframe was bleeding out full force onto the concrete, casting the shadows of the room within. Before any rational thought could even begin to process the situation, Kevin found his feet moving towards the entrance and his eyes drawn to the opening, however, he squeezed them shut before he got to close in a feeble attempt to avoid the heartache he was so obviously determined to bring upon himself. He braced himself with fingers latched on the frame and made sure that he was positioned so that he would be forced to take in the whole room; it was like the boys from his team always said: _Go big or go home._

It took him a few seconds to readjust to the light flooding back into his vision, especially with the rapidly moving figure shifting in front of him.

He was _dancing._

Kevin had never found himself being the type of person that argued his opinions; friends and family were a maybe but strangers were a clear cut no. He’d always found himself nodding and smiling along with whichever clique he’d had to cater to during that conversation and allowed things to flow without his input. During football training growing up, he’d often heard the boys surrounding him make jokes at the expense of dancers, especially after their Coach had suggested that perhaps they should incorporate some ballet into their fitness regimes. They had gone on for hours about pretentious dancers and their prissy songs and uptight attitudes towards others. Kevin would be a liar to say that after years of hearing the same judgment he hadn’t somewhat bought into the idea, but watching his enigma move fiercely in front of him- he was inclined to rethink his opinion.

He had never seen anything like it; every movement set off hundreds of muscles flexing underneath taut skin. Every flick of a foot or hand was perfectly precisioned, strong yet delicate at the same time. Every spin was perfectly catered to the music, he seemed to be almost floating as he spun on the tips of his toes- _how was he doing that_\- it was entirely beautiful in a way that Kevin had never experienced. In spite of all the grace, however, there was a look of rage plastered on the face of the boy; his brows were furrowed into a deep v and there was a fury flickering in his eyes whenever he caught a glimpse of them in the dusted mirror on the wall.

Beautiful wasn’t the word. Dangerous was.

Danger was definitely the emotion that Kevin felt when the music came to a slow stop and the boy landed facing directly towards the entrance and, in turn, directly towards him. It was only at that moment that he realized in his stupor he had stepped out to the point of almost being in the room. For a horrendous moment, their eyes met and there was nothing but fire between them, a blazing connection of blown-out pupils that seemed much too intimate for their first-ever acknowledgment of each other. He imagined that the same concoction of fear and shock on his opposers face also matched his own, and before any words could pass between the two of them, he was on the balls of his feet and sprinting faster than he could ever remember being.

It took an extra four blocks for his heart to ease some of the thrumming, still, he knew that he wasn’t struggling to get breath into his lungs due to the exercise.

* * *

It was hard, but he tried his best to remove any recollection of the dancing boy from his mind. He finally persuaded Neil to stop talking about it, no longer offering him the satisfaction of a reaction at the mention of blond hair and pointe shoes. He changed his running routes and made sure that he steered clear of the old abandoned building at all times. 

_Allison always talks about self-care._ That was what he tried to tell himself- that by completely avoiding the anxiety-inducing experience that was anything to do with him was his way of looking out for himself. Of course, he knew that it was a complete lie. 

After getting fed up with his ‘constant moping’, Neil, Allison and a few of the other reprobates his father had taken under his wing that he had somehow found himself associated with had organized a night out at a club a few towns over. Associates or not, they seemed to know that Kevin would be anywhere at the promise of alcohol on somebody else's tab. He never understood why everybody made it into such an ordeal; he was waiting in the front room of the apartment he (half-)stayed at with Neil, tapping his foot on the carpet whilst the others were still emerging from their various different ‘get ready’ points.

Neil had told him that the club they were going to was called _Eden’s Twilight_ and that Allison and Renee knew three of the people who worked there and could probably hook them up with a few free drinks. The drive crammed into Matt’s pick up was agonizingly slow and the engine never seemed to sound any less like it could die at any second; he’d be a liar to say he didn’t enjoy the blurring of the highway as they sped past trees, cars, and buildings. The way they all seemed to morph into one gave him an oddly serene feeling, it was peaceful.

Of course, that peace could never last. The moment that they entered the bar Kevin was struck with a feeling of abject terror because _the dancing boy was behind the bar_ and Renee was talking to him like all of this meant nothing. The words slipped out before he could stop them,  
“It’s you.” The eyes that passed over him as a result were nothing like the ones he had witnessed weeks prior, those had been angry and driven, these were the eyes of a dead man, completely cold and void of anything that could be considered feelings. In spite of that, there was a cruel smile twisted on his face as he said,  
“Righty ‘o,” and more sinister, “What _have_ I done this time?”  
“You’re the dancer in the abandoned room.” He wasn’t justified with an answer that time, only the slightest giggle from Renee,  
“Andrew’s certainly not a dancer, Kevin.”  
“But how-”  
“You must be thinking of Aaron,” a louder voice rang out from behind the bar, followed by a much taller, tanned man with dozens of glasses stacked in his hands, “You a friend? Don’t sweat it, I still get them confused sometimes. He’s round the back on his break if you want him.”

In an all too familiar turn of events, Kevin was out the door and making his way around the back before his mind could make sense of the information that it had received. 

And there he was.

He spotted the golden hair under a streetlight before anything else, the rest of him was clad in black from head to toe, barely visible in the darkness. There was an open bottle hanging loosely been his fingertips and Kevin watched as he pulled it to his lips and took a deep swig.

Kevin tried to swallow any anxiety he felt (it didn’t work) and set forward into the light himself,  
“It really is you.” The figure jumped slightly at the comment, fear passing over his face before it curled with recognition,  
“You’re my stalker.”  
“No,” Kevin’s response was frantic, “....yes. But it wasn’t like that I swear-”  
“Relax, I’m much too buzzed to care about you right now,” he paused before offering the bottle which Kevin too almost too enthusiastically.

They stood in a kind of awkward silence for what felt like an eternity, moving the bottle between them until there were only droplets left in the bottom.  
“Are you a professional?”  
“What?” He could feel the red hot blush grow to his cheeks,  
“Uh...athlete...dancer....” Even in the darkness, Kevin could make out the way Aaron’s eyes were smoldering like coals,  
“Used to be.”  
“What happened?”  
“What’s it to you,” Aaron’s voice came out like knives on a grater before gaining a darkness akin to his twin, “Drug testing.” 

The silence returned for a few moments, but Kevin quickly decided what he needed to do.  
“My dad sponsors and manages athletes from...disadvantaged backgrounds. He’d definitely help you out if that was what you wanted.”  
“You think I’m some fucking charity case, huh? You don’t know shit!” Kevin couldn’t help but flinch at the angry words flying in his direction, “I don’t want your stupid fucking pity offer.” Kevin took a shaky inhale before slipping one of the cards he always carried with him out of his pocket and dropping it on the floor,  
“The offer is there if you want it.”

With that, he turned on his heel and practically ran back into the club with only one plan of getting completely shitfaced.

* * *

Life carried on. At the time the upset that Kevin had felt churning in his stomach was mountainous; he wasn’t sure how he’d ever overcome the unbearable memory of the experience that followed him wherever he went. Alas, it took some time, but he moved on from the disappointment of his meeting with Aaron Minyard. 

As if the world was taunting him over and over, it obviously couldn’t stay that way.

It was on a Saturday morning that his dad rang him to warn him of a client coming over for their first meeting and that he and Abby wouldn’t be able to make it back in time, asking if Kevin would be okay with making a few introductions. _He’s your age_, he’d assured. 

Nothing could have prepared him for answering the door to Aaron Minyard on that Saturday morning.  
“Fuck, I thought it’d have to deal with this at some point but not as soon as I got to the damn door.”  
“Come in,” was the only monotonous response Kevin could muster amidst the nerves, “Would you like a drink?” Aaron held up a coffee cup in his hand in response,  
“I’m okay.”

If Kevin had though the silence that night had been unbearable, that didn’t come close to the awkwardness of the two of them sitting in his dad’s office. All that he could think to do is run through the little booklet that sat on the desk, explaining the types of things that they would offer support for until Aaron’s tense voice cut him off,  
“Listen, I can’t put up with this awkward shit...” he paused and Kevin could practically hear his teeth grating, “So I’m sorry.”  
“Not used to apologizing?”  
“No, I suppose I’m not. I was a dick that night- I was drunk and high and I’d had a shitty day,” he inhaled through his nose, “But I wouldn’t fucking be here if I didn’t want that to change, would I?”  
“No, I suppose not.”  
“We even?”  
“I guess so.”

Things were somewhat less painful after they’d gotten that out of the way and Kevin even found himself slipping into a conversation with the blond when they ran out of business to discuss,  
“What do you do?”  
“Huh?”  
“This all seems pretty athletic,” Aaron motioned to, well, the whole of him, “What sport do you play?”  
“Football.” Aaron allowed the smallest of bemused smiles to slip onto his face,  
“All football players are neanderthals.”  
“I can agree with that.”

It took a while for the conversation to slip to the inevitable, but the blow came as expected,  
“Why were you watching me that day?” Kevin couldn’t lie, not now, after all this turmoil and anxiety and disappointment.  
“It was beautiful.” Aaron’s gaze quickly dropped to his lap, obviously uncomfortable with being complimented in such a way,  
“...You really think so?”  
“I do.” And at that moment Kevin had always been sure that he wasn’t gay, but he felt something different when Aaron’s chocolate eyes (a gorgeous color, so dark that they almost blended with his pupils, Kevin noted) forged their way into his own. It was only when he felt his center of gravity lean minutely forward and he could see his opposition doing the same that the bang of the front door broke them from their trance and sent them flying apart. His father barged in with his usual rough exterior.

“So Aaron Minyard, right?”

* * *

Two weeks after that, Aaron let Kevin watch him practice for the first time.

* * *

And two months after that they kissed for the first time and Aaron became _Kevin’s dancing boy._

**Author's Note:**

> I hate this with a passion and I feel like the only way it should truly be read is within hellfire, but I really wanted to post something and this was about all my motivation could stir up. Kevaaron own my dead heart and that's my only justification for _this_.
> 
> Fun Fact 2: I wrote this with a bruised (maybe broken) finger
> 
> If you think this is _ha ha sick_ then I've started a new [tumblr](https://literary-shitstorm.tumblr.com/) recently (it's no longer my username on here), go give it a look, I cross-posted the fic there and cherish and support.


End file.
